Give the ‘96 Jazz Reggie Miller and Grant Hill, do Bulls still threepeat?

[Jimmy Recard]

Add prime Reggie (age 30, 31, 32) and Grant Hill before the injuries (age 23, 24, 25) for a 3 year stretch to that Jazz team. They still have Stockton and Malone and now Hornacek is their 6th man. How do the match up with the Bulls? Let’s say they play each other 3 straight years in the finals between 96-98.

Longley
Rodman
Pippen
Jordan
Harper
6th man / Kukoc

Vs

Ostertag
Malone
Hill
Miller
Stockton
6th man / Hornacek

Who ya got?

[kulaz3000]

[Jimmy Recard]

Ahhh just realised I posted this on the GB instead of PC board. Feel free to move it.

[GhosDini]

That would be the superest team of all time

[jerok]

I'll prob have to take the Jazz.
MJ and Pip as great as they are, they won't be seeing a lot of Jeff Hornacek guarding them on switches.
At least Reggie and Grant got comparable size.
Poor Hornacek had to guard Pippen primarily and jordan on switches in 2 finals series.

[SelfishPlayer]

Grant Hill wouldn't be his best with a floor general point guard. Glenn Rice or Allan Houston would fit better with Stockton. I take the Bulls because of this.

[Lost92Bricks]

The question is actually disrespectful to the Jazz. They were already a couple gamewinners from beating the Bulls even without those guys.

[Capn'O]

Gotta sub out Tag for Late/Post Prime Ewing.

[Marcus_Shart]

No overtime at the Gatorade factory that year

[scrabbarista]

I agree that Hill would be greatly diminished off the ball. Young Hill was an extremely crap shooter who could beat absolutely anyone off the dribble. (Maybe Stockton would play more off the ball? He was a deadly shooter.)

In any case, you add Miller, too, and I have to assume that'd be zero titles for the Bulls. The Jazz would probably be the consensus greatest team of all time in this scenario.

(PS I didn't vote.)

[macNcheese3]

Prime Hill.... and Reggie oh man. MJ is the GOAT but thats a hard bridge to cross.

[Jimmy Recard]

The question is actually disrespectful to the Jazz. They were already a couple gamewinners from beating the Bulls even without those guys.

They lost both series in 6. So no, they weren’t.

[Lost92Bricks]

They lost both series in 6. So no, they weren’t.

Because the Bulls hit 3 gamewinners in the '97 series. Almost all the games came down to one possession.

[Stan]

Seriously, adding Reggie AND Hill to a team that was winning 60 games and making b2b Finals without them? Gee, I wonder how that turns out

[KodiakBear]

The question is actually disrespectful to the Jazz. They were already a couple gamewinners from beating the Bulls even without those guys.

They lost both series in 6. So no, they weren’t.

Yes they were. Both series were very close. In 97 every Bulls win went down to the wire besides game 2. Michael Jordan hit a gamewinner at the buzzer in game 1, Game 5 with the series being tied 2-2 required Jordan's incredible flue game and was a 2 pt game. Game 6 needed a Steve Kerr game winner with 5 seconds left to win the game. I don't know how it could be argued it wasn't a close series.

98 wasn't as close, but was still a very close series besides game 3 where the Bulls dominated. Every game went down to the wire and it took a fluke steve kerr rebound and the famous Jordan shot in game 6 to win those games. It was a very competitive series that easily could have flipped.

And yeah this is a weird thread. Since the series were so close, obviously if you give the Jazz another all star they win the series. If you give them two, they probably sweep. You could say the same thing about any close series though.

[KodiakBear]

They lost both series in 6. So no, they weren’t.

Because the Bulls hit 3 gamewinners in the '97 series. Almost all the games came down to one possession.

Yeah the 97 series was about as good of a finals as has existed from an objective standpoint. 3 of the 4 Bulls wins were all time classic games; literally 3 of the best games of all time. The Jazz win in game 4 was also an all time great game and one of the rare finals games where Jordan choked down the stretch.

[Jimmy Recard]

They lost both series in 6. So no, they weren’t.

Because the Bulls hit 3 gamewinners in the '97 series. Almost all the games came down to one possession.

Sure but they were self inflicted choke jobs by the Jazz too.

Game 1, Malone blows BOTH free throws to set up Mike’s game winner.

Game 5, Mike’s flu/hangover game, not technically a game winner but fine. Russell inexplicably leaves the GOAT open to help on Pippen and Mike hits a go ahead 3 with 30 seconds still to play. Jazz cut it to 1 then Utah don’t foul on the inbounds for some reason (“Karl Malone what are you doing?!”)

Game 6, they still had plenty of to get a good shot after Kerr’s jumper. Russell throws an awful cross court pass that gets stolen by Pippen.

My point is that as great as Mike was down the stretch of those games, Jazz were equally as bad.

So saying they were “a couple game winners away from beating the bulls” is quite the stretch imo.

Not to mention they still hold the record for the worst finals loss margin in a game from the following year.

[Jimmy Recard]

The question is actually disrespectful to the Jazz. They were already a couple gamewinners from beating the Bulls even without those guys.

They lost both series in 6. So no, they weren’t.

Yes they were. Both series were very close. In 97 every Bulls win went down to the wire besides game 2. Michael Jordan hit a gamewinner at the buzzer in game 1, Game 5 with the series being tied 2-2 required Jordan's incredible flue game and was a 2 pt game. Game 6 needed a Steve Kerr game winner with 5 seconds left to win the game. I don't know how it could be argued it wasn't a close series.

98 wasn't as close, but was still a very close series besides game 3 where the Bulls dominated. Every game went down to the wire and it took a fluke steve kerr rebound and the famous Jordan shot in game 6 to win those games. It was a very competitive series that easily could have flipped.

And yeah this is a weird thread. Since the series were so close, obviously if you give the Jazz another all star they win the series. If you give them two, they probably sweep. You could say the same thing about any close series though.

See my response to Lost92Bricks above.

In regards to your last paragraph, this Jazz team is basically the 90’s version of the KD Warriors in my head, up against (imo) the greatest team ever. Because why not it’s the offseason

[Winsome Gerbil]

So...just randomly give the Jazz FOUR HOFs and a HOF coach to boot?

Exactly how many squads in NBA history are going to match that? This is half a step off the "could anybody beat a team a Russell/Duncan/Bird/Drexler/Nash lineup?" type of questions.

The best part is though that the one guy the Jazz get to continue to start to round out the squad?:


Kinda makes the whole proposal sing. If you don't love Tag, you don't love basketball.

[Topofthekey]

You don't even need to stack the Jazz team like that

Simply give the 98 Pacers a better PG, like Tim Hardaway, and Bulls would have lost

Phil Jackson putting Scottie Pippen on Mark Jackson was the turning point in that series, from that point onwards just getting the ball across the half court line was an achievement for the Pacers every possession